My home is starting to look like Pesach. Familiar pots, pans, and utensils. Soon it will smell like Passover as well with generational aromas wafting from the oven and the stovetop. When we sit down to the table this evening, we'll return to the practices of our family ancestors and tell the story that has travelled with us year after year after year. Whether you go around the table and each read a section of the Haggadah or a leader guides the table community through the seder stages, every home will ask questions and tell of the journey from enslavement to freedom. That path is an eternal one. It's why we come together each year to tell the story and add new voices and lenses to our practice.
The other day, Evan Gershkovich, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested by Russia's security services on false charges. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles who grew up in New Jersey will spend Pesach in the Lefortovo prison where myriad refuseniks, like Natan Sharansky (nee Anatoly), were imprisoned under Soviet rule. Growing up, we added an extra matza at our table for Soviet Jews. As you gather for seder this evening, add a chair for Evan to spark conversation (the goal of so much of our seder practice) and pray he returns to his family and freedom. His colleagues at the WSJ invite us to share the photo below on social media with the hashtag #FreeEvan to raise awareness. As Rev. Martin Luther King, the anniversary of whose assassination fell this week, said, No one is free until we are all free.
May this Pesach open the door to true freedom of body, mind and spirit as we continue to tell our story.
Hag Kasher v'Sameach
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Congregation Habonim 103 West End Ave New York, NY 10023
